Need Help Blu-Ray Ripping

[BeeBoop]

I'm new at this and use to pirate movies. Over this Christmas holidays, I've decided to spend a good amount of money on my favorite movies and ripping them to my Serviio media center. Serviio is similar to Plex.


However, I've run into a huge loading problem. Most of my rips have these annoying load times that pop up sporadically during movie watching. It's horrible. I use makeMKV and only click the button to rip. I've tried Plex and I get these load times too but they are at different locations of the movie when compared to Serviio.

These constant load time problems do not happen with pirated movies. I have one pirated movie that's 7gbs and it runs very smoothly. So I'm thinking there is something wrong with my rips. Does anyone have a suggestion?

 

[smitbret]

When you say "load times", what do you mean? Is the movie just buffering? Are you ripping DVDs or Blu-Ray?

There's a lot of missing info. Most notable, how your network, server and playback device are configured.

 

[BeeBoop]

Yup. It is buffering Blu-Ray movies I made with makemkv. The buffering always happens at the same exact times. If I change the transcoded settings, the buffering changes places but will still happen at the same exact spots if played again with the different transcoded settings.

I7 3770k
16gb ram
Windows 8
GTX 770
512gb SSD (holds operating system here and transcoded here)
Western Digital Green HDD 3TB (contains all ripped 20gb movies)

I am on a wired connection through an internet power line adaptor. Speedtest.com says my TV is getting the full 50mb download and 3mb up. However, powerline adaptors are only rated at 500mbps max. They are not Ethernet cables. I have internet power line adaptors!

The TV I am streaming to is a Samsung HU8550.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Is the "buffering" happening during high action scenes?

Here is the truth BeeBoop: Makemkv is solid. If you are experiencing stuttering, my guess it is because the raw bitrate of the highest scenes is maxing out your setup. I think your box is powerful enough to do the transcoding, jeez any i7 should handle it, but at the end of the day you might need to Handbrake down the file size after rip to get it to work.


OOOOOOOOOOoooor work towards a setup that doesn't transcode all over the place.

 

[smitbret]

Does Plex pre-transcode?

If so, try it and then playback.

If you are still getting the buffering then you are having network issues.

 

[BeeBoop]

So I shouldn't be having any problems with makeMKV? I also noticed that some of my Blu-ray rips do not fast forward. Trying to fast forward will reset my TV. The buffering doesn't happen during action scenes. I've noticed it mainly during the beginning of videos where there isn't much action. I'm just guessing here but it happens when there is some type of change in audio.

Thanks for the handbrake suggestion. I've actually tried it last night and it seems to fix everything. I changed movie file from MKV to MP4. MKV doesn't seem to play nicely with my TV. I can fast forward and I have yet to notice any buffering with the MP4 container. Only problem is that Handbrake reduces some quality, mainly the blacks and shadows. The blacks turn grainy instead of staying black. My Prometheus rip went from a 30gb file to a 4gb. That's huge. Can I maybe reduce the file to 10gb without any noticeable loss in quality?

Edit.
Thanks smitbret. I will try Plex again. Only thing I hate about Plex is that Plex does not pick up all of my movies.

Edit
I'm guessing MKV just doesn't work well with my television. Going to search for something to rip straight to mp4.

 

[Childs]

Its not clear which device you are using to play the movie. Are you using the TVs builtin DNLA player or have a PC/streaming box playing the movie? Maybe the profile you are using is too much if you are using just the TV for rendering playback. Or your network can't handle it. You can inspect the movie attributes from Handbrake and compare it to makeMKV and see if either the profile or the data rate is significantly higher using makeMKV.

 

[BeeBoop]

I am using the Samsung 8550 to play movies. I believe it is through the DLNA. I turn on the television with my Samsung remote and click sources. My media server, serviio, pops up as a source. I navigate through the files and play a movie.

I just tested The Dark Knight Rises MKV and it works fine. I can fast forward and skip in that movie. No load times or buffering. However, Prometheus does not fast forward or skip. Trying to fast forward or skip Prometheus mkv file will reboot the television. I used handbrake on Prometheus, changing it to mp4, and it works but I lose some quality.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Can I maybe reduce the file to 10gb without any noticeable loss in quality?

Yup. And you throw enough cores at Handbrake and it can really rip em down. The trick is to play with settings, I have some I could look up if you want to try.

I also think Plex is worth a try. After further information it seems like you hit the DLNA wall. Unless you have an amazing software DLNA receiver (read: not a Samsung tv) there is always some issue eventually where a DLNA server can't fit the square peg into a round hole.

People who download stuff all the time (and therefore deal with standard rips) don't realize this but source content can sometimes be nasty. I have Blu Rays that are VC1, MPEG2, interlaced, etc. It is easy for Serviio to shove a standard rip across, but it gets a weird Blu Ray and milage may vary. Handbrake standardizes them again with the high profile setting.

 

[BeeBoop]

Thanks! If you can find those handbrake settings, that would be awesome.

Edit.
I found a good fix last night. I use rebox to convert my mkv files to mp4. It takes only two minutes to do because I'm only changing containers. The file sizes are smaller by about 5 gigs but still over 20gb. The quality is still there.

 

[Childs]

OK, makeMKV doesn't actually reencode the title, it just remuxes the mts to a mkv container. So for example, the movie I just did resulted in a 20 GB mkv with vc1, dts and ac3 tracks. The data rate was something like 26Mbps, which matches the original vc1 track. I can see why your TV would have a hard time playing that back. Handbrake would use a quality rate factor to reduce the file size (data rate) while maintaining a certain level of quality. I'm fooling around with VidCoder now to recompress to a more storage friendly format, but so far it works like I remember this kind of stuff working.

If your new mp4 using rebox is over 20GB, I'm surprised it plays back fine. Maybe your TVs mkv playback is just poor.

 

[BeeBoop]

Yup, some movies in mkv work fine and some don't. The ones that don't, I change the container to mp4 to work. The mp4 files are still large at around 24gb. There seems to be a 3-4gb loss when I change containers. I believe the loss is in audio since the audio volume starts off lower than the original.

 

[smitbret]

Yup, some movies in mkv work fine and some don't. The ones that don't, I change the container to mp4 to work. The mp4 files are still large at around 24gb. There seems to be a 3-4gb loss when I change containers. I believe the loss is in audio since the audio volume starts off lower than the original.

I don't mean to be condescending here, but you literally don't know what it is that you are doing.

It sounds like you have a bandwidth issue. Your raw BD rips have a bitrate that is either too high for your TV or too high to stream across your network. Your "switch" from .mkv to .mp4 is fixing the issue because you are completely re-encoding the file to a lower bitrate that just happens to be acceptable for your setup. If you are using Handbrake to switch the .mkv to .mp4 it appears that you are using one of the default settings and probably re-encoding the audio track, too. That would explain the lowered audio levels. The volume of audio has absolutely nothing to do with the size of the file.

If you really want to test it out, remux your .mkv with this tool:

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/My-MP4Box-GUI

It will literally allow you to just switch your file from .mkv to .mp4 but it won't re-encode anything. You won't be able to pull all of the streams over, but just remux the video stream and a Dolby Digital (AC3) or DTS stream and then see if it streams smoothly. If it does, then your issue is probably just the way your TV handles .mkv but more likely it will still buffer and cause issues. It could also fix the issue because it reduces the total file size when you strip out the unsupported streams. HD Audio streams aren't small.

If it does work, then it's still a thumbs up because you'll be able to just remux going forward which is a LOT faster than completely re encoding and you won't compromise on quality, either.

 

[mikey73]

I am trying to get some pionters on ripping BD movies too....
my set up is 2 win7 pc with the files stored on one and shared over a local network. I have ripped dvd's for many years with Handbrake.

so last night I got a BD drive in my desktop. took the only blue ray movie I had (Frozen) and ripped it to the hard drive. then encoded to MP4 with Handbrake with normal profile setting. Not sure if its necessary to change the frame rate but I always changed it to 29.97 for dvd so I did that. I used constant frame rate and let the quality setting at 20. I have noticed media center don't play with out some jumps and pauses over the network.

the output file if got was 2.49GB for the main movie with 2 ch Dolby pro logic sound and no subtitles or other audio tracks.

I played some of it on the local PC and it looked sharp on the 23" monitor.

so am I doing it right or anything I can do to improve my rips?

 

[poofyhairguy]

Use the source frame rate. When you force 29.97 that is bad bad

 

[mikey73]

Use the source frame rate. When you force 29.97 that is bad bad

Ok I will try that next time. Not sure why I ever forced 29.97FPS, way back when I got in to HTPC I had some playback issues and someone on a forum suggested that and it worked. I see the native frame rate is 24FPS for blue ray. I am using a trial of AnyDVD HD is there anything that is free that would break the copy protection? I used to use DVD Fab 8 with dvd but it could not do most disney films

How big should the files I end up with be? I am hoping to keep them in the 2-4 GB range since standard dvd was always 850Mb - 1.5GB depending on the length of the film.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I know of nothing free that breaks the copyright protection, but MakeMKV has a free trial and is the software I recommend.

As far as final file size, that is a personal decision and it depends on the content- something like a Pixar movie can be half the size of a live-action comic movie and look just as good. I hover around 4-6GB for 720p and 8-15GB for 1080p files but I am picky.

The trick is less about the final size and more getting there correctly. Keep the source framerate as is and use a Constant Quality. Also if you are going to butcher down the 5.1 tracks to stereo tracks use AAC to save file space.

 

[smitbret]

Ok I will try that next time. Not sure why I ever forced 29.97FPS, way back when I got in to HTPC I had some playback issues and someone on a forum suggested that and it worked. I see the native frame rate is 24FPS for blue ray. I am using a trial of AnyDVD HD is there anything that is free that would break the copy protection? I used to use DVD Fab 8 with dvd but it could not do most disney films

How big should the files I end up with be? I am hoping to keep them in the 2-4 GB range since standard dvd was always 850Mb - 1.5GB depending on the length of the film.

Echoing Poofy, here. In general it is best to set the fps to <Same as Source> and <Variable>. Also, not a bad idea to set the Detelecine & Decomb filters to <Default> and just leave them on all of the time. Handbrake will automatically detect and remove any 2:3 pulldown frames and clean up interlaced DVDs. That should fix any jumpy or other fps issues. I have never run into a DVD or BR that didn't work with that.

The size of the file is going to depend on things like the amount of on-screen action, amount of grain on the screen, bitrate of the original file, etc. For example, I can rip my Blu-Ray of How to Train Your Dragon with a CR setting of 18 and Handbrake pops out an .mkv of about 5GB. The same settings with Transformers comes in at 21GB because live action has more detail as well as film grain and other things.

If you have to have a certain size, it is best to use the 2-pass and set a bitrate. In general, I set a bitrate of 2000-3000kbps if I am jumping down to 720p or 6000-8000kbps if I am encoding to 1080p. I am pretty aggressive with the advanced settings when I do it that way, though and encodes can take anywhere from 8-18hours vs. 2-3 for a CF encode. Any less bitrate than that and I just don't think you can get a good PQ even with the most aggressive settings.

As far as audio, I generally put 2 audio tracks in my files for best compatibility since some devices require .aac as the first audio track. I go with a 2-channel, AAC, DLPII with a bitrate of 160kbps and then pass-thru the AC3 or DTS multi-channel track (whichever is available in the best fidelity) as the second track.

 

[Aikouka]

I know of nothing free that breaks the copyright protection, but MakeMKV has a free trial and is the software I recommend.

For Blu-ray ripping software, it's pretty cheap at $40. Other software like AnyDVD HD will do more, but they also cost considerably more. Ultimately, MakeMKV and Handbrake can do everything, and they're much more viable than when I first dabbled in this a few years ago. Back then, Handbrake didn't support PGS (Blu-ray subtitles).

As far as final file size, that is a personal decision and it depends on the content- something like a Pixar movie can be half the size of a live-action comic movie and look just as good. I hover around 4-6GB for 720p and 8-15GB for 1080p files but I am picky.

Dang... I usually keep mine to about 8GB maximum for 1080p. Of course, that's usually for a two hour movie; anything longer gets more space. I don't remember the exact settings that I use, but it's something like h.264 4.1 via QuickSync with high quality and 21 quality factor.

 

[mikey73]

thanks for the help I will try a few of those things as I play around with it.

for the audio I now remember that its the AAC 160 kbps 2 channel on Handbrake. I only have a Klipsch SB-1 sound bar on the living room set which is a 40" 1080p Samsung TV so I am not piping it to a 5.1 sound system.

 

[Childs]

thanks for the help I will try a few of those things as I play around with it.

for the audio I now remember that its the AAC 160 kbps 2 channel on Handbrake. I only have a Klipsch SB-1 sound on the living room set which is a 40" 1080p Samsung TV so I am not piping it to a 5.1 sound system.

If you think you will eventually have a 5.1 system you should do 5.1 now. You don't want to go back and rerip everything.

 

[smitbret]

If you think you will eventually have a 5.1 system you should do 5.1 now. You don't want to go back and rerip everything.

Exactly. It really takes only a minute or so to add the second audio track that passes the multi-channel through.

 

[poofyhairguy]

If you think you will eventually have a 5.1 system you should do 5.1 now. You don't want to go back and rerip everything.

Amen. Way back in the day I ripped a pile of my Blus and back then XBMC didn't support HD audio so I cut it out. Now I have been having to go back and re-rip them all and its a pain.

 

[mikey73]

well that is a good Idea..... I have considered that. I have an Old Sony pro logic system and got rid of it in favor of the sound bar with sub when the 2nd set of sony speakers developed bad foam surrounds and sounded bad. I like the simple set up and less speaker clutter. but never know.

 

[Charlie98]

If you think you will eventually have a 5.1 system you should do 5.1 now. You don't want to go back and rerip everything.

Is DPL II the same as 5.1... or do I need to add a second 5.1 track specifically (Handbrake.)